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Quotations From Lefty Gomez
"A lot of things run through your head when you're going in to relieve in a tight spot. One of them was, "Should I spike myself?"

"He (Jimmie Foxx) has muscles in his hair."

"I'd rather be lucky than good."

"I'm the guy that made Joe DiMaggio famous."

"I talked to the ball a lot of times in my career. I yelled, "Go foul. Go foul."

"I've got a new invention. It's a revolving bowl for tired goldfish."

"I was the worst hitter ever. I never even broke a bat until last year when I was backing out of the garage."

"No one hit home runs the way Babe did. They were something special. They were like homing pigeons. The ball would leave the bat, pause briefly, suddenly gain its bearings, then take off for the stands."

"One rule I had was make your best pitch and back up third base. That relay might get away and you've got another shot at him."

"The secret of my success was clean living and a fast outfield."

"When Neil Armstong first set foot on the moon, he and all the space scientists were puzzled by an unidentifiable white object. I knew immediately what it was. That was a home run ball hit off me in 1933 by Jimmie Foxx."

Originally posted by thecaptain Quotations From Lefty Gomez
"When Neil Armstong first set foot on the moon, he and all the space scientists were puzzled by an unidentifiable white object. I knew immediately what it was. That was a home run ball hit off me in 1973 by Jimmie Foxx."

That can't be right.... everyone knows the moon landing was in 1969, and Lefty pitched in the 1930's....

Thanks penguin4 i think is 1933.i will change it.Lefty was something else . this is what he said to the scooter........."Kid, is your mother in the stands? (Rizzuto replied yes) Well, stay here and talk to me a little and she'll think you're giving advice to the great Lefty Gomez." - Hall of Fame Pitcher Lefty Gomez

Quotations From Bill Klem
"An angry player can't argue with the back of an umpire who is walking away."

"Baseball is more than a game to me, it's a religon."

"Fix your eye on the ball from the moment the pitcher holds it in his glove. Follow it as he throws to the plate and stay with it until the play is completed. Action takes place only where the ball goes."

"Gentleman, he was out because I said he was out." - statement made after being shown a photo of a blown call

"It ain't nothin' till I call it."

"I told the umpires to walk back at least thirty-five feet from home plate. That reduced the arguements."

"Son, when you pitch a strike, Mr. Hornsby (Roger) will let you know."

"That guy in a twenty-five cent bleacher seat is as much entitled to know a call as the guy in the boxes. He can see my arm signal even if he can't hear my voice."

"The best umpired game is the game in which the fans cannot recall the umpires who worked it."

"The most cowardly thing in the world is blaming mistakes upon the umpires. Too many managers strut around on the field trying to manage the umpires instead of their teams."

"There are one-hundred fifty-four games in a season and you can find one-hundred fifty-four reasons why your team should have won every one of them."

Quotations From Cal Hubbard
"Being an umpire wasn't such a tough job. You really have to understand only two things and that's maintaing discipline and knowing the rule book."

"Boys, I'm one of those umpires that misses 'em every once in a while so if it's close, you'd better hit it."

"I always hated to throw a guy out of a game but sometimes it was necessary to keep order."

"The call that always seemed the toughest to me was the slide and tag play at second. You can see it coming, but you don't know which way the runner is going to slide, where the throw is going to be, and how the fielder is going to take the throw."

I had Paul Waner as part of my all time draft on another board -- he was in my outfield with Billy Hamilton and Willie Mays...he was quite an interesting character besides being a great player...

there's a story in Bill James' book about him --

In 1940, when Frankie Frisch was managing the Pirates and Waner was near the end of his career, Frisch found a whiskey bottle in the Pirate clubhouse. "Waner," yelled Frisch, holding up the bottle, "Is this yours?"

"Does it have anything in it?" Waner asked.
"It's half full," replied Frisch.
"Well, it can't be mine," Waner replied. "If it was mine, it would be empty."

Quotations From Stan Musial

consciously memorized the speed at which every pitcher in the league threw his fastball, curve, and slider; then, I'd pick up the speed of the ball in the first thirty feet of its flight and knew how it would move once it had crossed the plate."

"I have a darn good job, but please don't ask me what I do."

"I love to play this game of baseball - I love putting on this uniform."

"I never realized that batting a little ball around could cause so much commotion. I now know how Lindbergh must have felt when he returned from St. Louis."

"The first principle of contract negotiations is don't remind them of what you did in the past - tell them what you're going to do in the future."

"The key to hitting for high average is to relax, concentrate, and don't hit the fly ball to center field."

"There is no one correct way to bat, and so of course there is no one correct stance for it."

"There was never a day when I was as good as Joe DiMaggio at his best. Joe was the best, the very best I ever saw."

"When a pitcher's throwing a spitball, don't worry and don't complain, just hit the dry side like I do."

"You wait for a strike, then you knock the ................ out of it."

"Sometimes I sit in my den at home and read stories about myself. Kids used to save whole scrapbooks on me. They get tired of them and mail them to me. I'll go in there and read them, and you know what? They might as well be about Musial and DiMaggio, it's like reading about somebody else." - Mickey Mantle

"The man I marvel at is the one that's in there day after day, and night after night and still puts the figures on the board. I"m talking about Pete Rose, Stan Musial, the real stars. Believe me, especially the way we travel today, flying all night with a game the next night and then the next afternoon, if you can play one-hundred and sixty-two games, you're a man." - Sparky Anderson

"They can talk about Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby and Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio and Stan Musial and all the rest, but I'm sure not one of them could hold cards and spades to Williams in his sheer knowledge of hitting. He studied hitting the way a broker studies the stock market, and could spot at a glance mistakes that others couldn't see in a week." - Carl Yastrzemski

"When you're a kid, what fun the game is! You grab a bat and glove and ball, that's it. I know what Ted Williams and Stan Musial meant when they said it got tougher to get in shape every year." - Eddie Mathews

Quotations About Willie Mays

"But when he (Willie Mays) was in California, whites refused to sell him a house in their community. They loved his talent, but they didn't want him for a neighbor." - Jackie Robinson

"He was something like zero for twenty-one the first time I saw him. His first major league hit was a home run off me and I'll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie forever if I'd only struck him out." - Warren Spahn

"I can't believe that Babe Ruth was a better player than Willie Mays. Ruth is to baseball what Arnold Palmer is to golf. He got the game moving. But I can't believe he could run as well as Mays, and I can't believe he was any better an outfielder." - Sandy Koufax

"I'm not sure what the hell charisma is, but I get the feeling it's Willie Mays." - Ted Kluszewski

"I think it's incredible because there were guys like Mays and Mantle and Henry Aaron who were great players for ten years... I only had four or five good years." - Sandy Koufax

"I used to dream how good it would be to be Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle. My dreams have died. Even the rotten rings (World Series) aren't what they're supposed to be. I'll buy my own diamonds. I can afford it now. No one gives you anything, you've got to get it for yourself." - Reggie Jackson

"Snider, Mantle and Mays. You could get a fat lip in any saloon by starting an argument as to which was best. One point was beyond argument, though. Willie was by all odds the most exciting." - Red Smith

"The only man who could have caught that ball just hit it." - radio announcers everywhere

"There are 499 Major League ballplayers. Then there's Willie Mays" - SABR member

"There have been only two geniuses in the world. Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare." - Tallulah Bankhead

"They invented the All-Star game for Willie Mays." - Ted Williams

"(Ruth) never played a night game, he never hit against fireball relief pitching, he never traveled cross-country for a night game and played a day game the next day, he never performed before millions of television viewers, he never had to run on artificial turf. It is the changes in the game, the modern factors that have made the game more difficult, that bring Babe in here as number three, behind Mays and Aaron. His feats were heroic. So were theirs. They simply did them under tougher conditions." - Maury Allen

Quotations From Warren Spahn

pitcher needs two pitches, one they're looking for and one to cross them up."

"A sore arm is like a headache or a toothache. It can make you feel bad, but if you just forget about it and do what you have to do, it will go away. If you really like to pitch and you want to pitch, that's what you'll do."

"He was something like zero for twenty-one the first time I saw him. His first major league hit was a home run off me and I'll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie (Mays) forever if I'd only struck him out."

"Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing."

"I felt like, wow what a great way to make a living. If I goof up, there's going to be a relief pitcher coming in there. Nobody's going to shoot (he had just returned from WWII) me."

"I'm probably the only guy who worked for (Casey) Stengel before and after he was a genius."

"Once Musial timed your fastball, your infielders were in jeopardy."

"The difference between winning nineteen games and winning twenty for a pitcher is bigger than anyone out of baseball realizes. It's the same for hitters - someone who hits .300 looks back on the guy who batted .295 and says 'tough luck buddy."

"Twenty games is the magic figure for pitchers - .300 is the magic figures for batters. It pays off in salary and reputation. And those are the two things that keep a ballplayer in business."

"What is life, after all, but a challenge? And what better challenge can there be than the one between the pitcher and the hitter."

Originally posted by thecaptain Quotations From Bob Uecker
"Anybody with ability can play in the big leagues. But to be able to trick people year in and year out the way I did, I think that was a much greater feat."

"Baseball hasn't forgotten me. I go to a lot of old-timers games and I haven't lost a thing. I sit in the bullpen and let people throw things at me. Just like old times."

"Career highlights? I had two. I got an intentional walk from Sandy Koufax and I got out of a rundown against the Mets."

"I didn't get a lot of awards as a player. But they did have a Bob Uecker Day Off for me once in Philly."

"If a guy hits .300 every year, what does he have to look forward to? I always tried to stay around .190, with three or four RBI. And I tried to get them all in September. That way I always had something to talk about during the winter."

"I had slumps that lasted into the winter."

"I hit a grand slam off Ron Herbel and when his manager Herman Franks came out to get him, he was bringing Herbel's suitcase."

"I knew when my career was over. In 1965 my baseball card came out with no picture."

"I led the league in "Go get 'em next time."

"In 1962 I was named Minor League Player of the Year. It was my second season in the bigs."

"I set records that will never be equaled. In fact, I hope 90% of them don't even get printed."

"I signed with the Milwaukee Braves for three-thousand dollars. That bothered my dad at the time because he didn't have that kind of dough. But he eventually scraped it up."

"One time, I got pulled over at four a.m. I was fined seventy-five dollars for being intoxicated and four-hundred for being with the Phillies."

"People don't know this but I helped the Cardinals win the pennant. I came down with hepatitis. The trainer injected me with it."

"Sporting goods companies pay me not to endorse their products."

"Sure, women sportswriters look when they're in the clubhouse. Read their stories. How else do you explain a capital letter in the middle of a word?"

"The biggest thrill a ballplayer can have is when your son takes after you. That happened when my Bobby was in his championship Little League game. He really showed me something. Struck out three times. Made an error that lost the game. Parents were throwing things at our car and swearing at us as we drove off. Gosh, I was proud."

"The highlight of my career? In '67 with St. Louis, I walked with the bases loaded to drive in the winning run in an intersquad game in spring training."

"Let's face it. Umpiring is not an easy or happy way to make a living. In the abuse they suffer, and the pay they get for it, you see an imbalance that can only be explained by their need to stay close to a game they can't resist."

"The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up."

"When I came up to bat with three men on and two outs in the ninth, I looked in the other team's dugout and they were already in street clothes."

"When I looked at the third base coach, he turned his back on me."

Bob Uecker

Great lines, I'm sitting here at work, trying to hide the laughs and the tears are running down my face.

Quotations From Robin Roberts

"Generally in the Little League you're up against a good pitcher who throws like hell. What does the coach say? Get a walk. Isn't that beautiful way to learn to hit? For four years you stand up there looking for a walk."

"He (Roberto Clemente) looked like he was falling apart when he ran. Looked like he was coming apart when he threw. His stance at the plate was ridiculous, he really looked less like a ball player than anyone I'd ever seen. It was a crazy thing. The only thing that made him look sensational was the results."

"I never slept when I lost. I'd see the sun come up without ever having closed my eyes. I'd see those base hits over and over and they would drive me crazy."

"My feeling is that when you're managing a baseball team, you have to pick the right people to play and then pray a lot."

"There is no doubt that someone who tries to throw a curve or pitch at any early age before he's developed, before his hand is big enough to grip the ball correctly, will damage his arm."

"When I was with Houston at the end of my career, Bob Gibson walked up to me one day when I was running in the outfield. He asked me why I didn't quit and said what a shame it was that I was ruining a great career and just trying to hang on. Years later, I saw Gibson trying to do the same thing."

"When Mickey Mantle bunted with the wind blowing out in Crosley Field." Sports Illustrated article describing his best All Star moment.

Quotations From Frank Robinson

"Close don't count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades."

"I don't see anyone playing in the major leagues today (1982) who combines both the talent and the intensity that I had. I always tried to do the best. I knew I couldn't always be the best, but I tried to be."

"I don't see why you reporters keep confusing Brooks and me. Can't you see that we wear different numbers."

"If I had one wish in the world today, it would be that Jackie Robinson could be here to see this happen." - 1974 press conference on being the first black manager.

"If the guys on the bench were as good as the guys you have out there, they'd be out there in first place."

"I had no trouble communicating, the player's just didn't like what I had to say."

"I have heard of managers who encourage players not to slide hard for fear they will get hurt and be lost from the lineup for a time. That is why you occasionally see a player go into second base on a double-play ball and not even bother to slide. I wonder, could Ty Cobb sit though plays like that and hold his lunch?"

"It's nice to come into a town and be referred to as the manager of the Cleveland Indians instead of as the first black manager."

"Managers don't have as much leverage as they used to have. We can't really be the boss. If I say to a veteran player, 'If you don't perform, you may be sent back to the minors, they look at me and say, 'Who are you kidding? I'm not going anyplace. I've already had three years in the major leagues and you can't send me back to the minor leagues without my ok.'"

"No, I don't think my presence will cause an increase in black attendance at Cleveland. People come out to see the players. When do you see a manager anyway? When he's out on the field arguing with the umpires, making a fool of himself and you know you can't win, and when he brings out the line-up card."

"Pitchers did me a favor when they knocked me down. It made me more determined. I wouldn't let that pitcher get me out. They say you can't hit if you're on your back, but I didn't hit on my back. I got up."

"Probably the most dramatic change in pitching I've observed in my years in baseball has been the disappearance of the knockdown or brushback pitch. This is why record numbers of home runs are flying out of ballparks, why earned run averages are soaring, and why there are so few twenty game winners in the majors."

"The baselines belongs to the runner, and whenever I was running the bases, I always slid hard. I wanted infielders to have that instant's hesitation about coming across the bag at second or about standing in there awaiting a throw to make a tag. There are only twenty-seven outs in a ballgame, and it was my job to save one for my team every time I possibly could."

"The fan is the one who suffers. He cheers a guy to a .350 season then watches that player sign with another team. When you destroy fan loyalties, you destroy everything."

"There's absolutely no way you can go barreling into second and dump a guy on a double play, like you should do, when you've been fraternizing with him before a game.